Susan Collins

It is so important that we do so because looming is a government shutdown, another harmful, unnecessary, and disastrous government shutdown if we do not complete our work.

Well, there's a lot going on with this meeting, I will say, and delighted to be here with you.

The Framework Review, which we will hear more about, very complicated context, obviously, and I'd love to tell you a little bit about how I'm seeing economic conditions in the outlooks.

Well, this is a time when you need to be looking at the balance.

You need to be looking at all of it.

And, you know, growth has been slowing recently.

But at the same time, overall economic fundamentals are relatively solid.

And that's a context in which it's not surprising to see the indicators being mixed.

Some are stronger and some are a bit weaker.

So you've got to look at the whole picture and not focus too much on any one or two specific indicators.

Well, so you do have to be thinking about all of it.

We cannot wait until all of the uncertainty is behind us.

You've got to make decisions in real time.

So I think that part is true.

It is a complex context for monetary policy because I see upside risks to inflation related to tariffs.

We're already starting to see some of that and downside risks.

on the labor market side.

And so it's about balancing those features.

And I don't get ahead of a decision that we're going to make four weeks from now.

We're going to see data in between now and then.